Sixty per cent of Singapore’s Students Mobilised to Save the Environment

Published bySingapore Environment Council

Wednesday 8 November 2017

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Six out of every 10 school-age students participated in this year’s SEC-StarHub School Green Awards (SGA), taking their message about conservation and recycling into their communities.

Sponsored by StarHub, the SGA is administered by the Singapore Environment Council (SEC) and encourages young people to turn their passion for the environment into action, gaining an understanding of environmental sustainability along the way.

Together, they achieved enormous results during the past year:

Energy: 5,252,000 kilowatt hours, the energy required to power 1,094 4-Room HDB flats for a year

A record of 410 schools took part this year, of which more than 28 per cent were pre-schools. Pre-schools have been the fastest growing section of the Awards, with teachers encouraging their pupils to take care of themselves and their environment from an early age.

“Young people instinctively know conservation is important and they want to be involved in activities that help save the environment. Drawing a personal inspiration from the Japanese, I am happy that StarHub is able to play a part in nurturing Singapore’s next generation including pre-schoolers to go green through the School Green Awards.

By taking part in the SGA, each student can make a difference in their own school, as well as spread their enthusiasm for the green cause into their families and the community,” said Ms Jeannie Ong, Chief Strategic Partnership Officer of StarHub.

“Creating a sustainable Singapore is something we do for our children. So it makes sense to get them involved in environmental activities from an early age. We hope that the SEC-StarHub School Green Awards initiative helps to inculcate green consciousness in our youths from a young age.

They are learning lessons which they will take into adulthood, helping to make our society more responsible and sustainable in the future. I congratulate each school on taking part and for earning a SEC-StarHub School Green Award,” said Ms Jen Teo, Executive Director of SEC.

Mr Ng Chee Meng, Minister for Education (Schools) and Second Minister for Transport, officiated at the awards ceremony as the Guest-of-Honour and presented the awards at ITE College East.

Students reach 8 per cent of population with green message

As part of the assessment criteria, students are required to be ambassadors for the environment and develop outreach programmes in their communities to promote a sustainable Singapore. This year the students reached more than 459,000 people, or about eight percent of Singapore’s population.

Examples of the community outreach programmes include:

Preschool: A Go Green Project to enhance greenery and promote the 3R – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle towards a zero-waste nation. It also included a recycling drive where teachers, staff and children went door-to-door to collect recyclables from the residents in neighbouring block (PCF Sparkletots Preschool @ Pioneer Blk 661B)

Primary: A food waste collection and weighing project to raise awareness of reducing food wastage, and a “Clean Plate Day” campaign in collaboration with charity organisation Food From The Heart to encourage students to finish what’s on their plate and reduce food wastage (Xinghua Primary School)

Secondary: A “Refuse Plastic” campaign to persuade students and canteen vendors to reduce the use of disposable plastics, including a beach clean-up at Pasir Ris Park to understand how plastic pollution affects the marine animals (Anderson Secondary School)

Junior College: The creation of worm factories to produce fertiliser as a means of reducing food waste (National Junior College)

Institute of Higher Learning: A collaboration with Toa Payoh East Community Centre to run workshops on reusing and recycling old clothes by turning them into pouches for household items such as portable chargers (Ngee Ann Polytechnic)

International School: Making mini documentaries on beach clean-up activities and short ‘eco-tips’ films, promoting the use of tap water for drinking and re-usable bags for shopping (Tanglin Trust School)

Special Education School: The creation of a butterfly garden to improve biodiversity in flora and fauna (MINDS Woodlands Gardens School)

The Lotus Sustained Achievement Award winners

The SGA platform serves as an encouragement and appreciation for each school’s efforts. Of the 410 participating schools, 146 received the Lotus Sustained Achievement Award for achieving a score of 95 per cent or more for three consecutive years, indicating a very high quality of efforts and commitment from many schools.

This year seven schools received SGA’s top honour – the Outstanding Environmental Outreach Project Award (examples of their projects are found in Appendix 1):

PCF Sparkletots Preschool @ Pioneer Blk 661B

Xinghua Primary School

Anderson Secondary School

National Junior College

Ngee Ann Polytechnic

Tanglin Trust School

MINDS Woodlands Gardens School

About the Singapore Environment Council

Established in 1995, the Singapore Environment Council (SEC) is an independently managed, non-profit and non-government organisation (NGO). We influence thinking on sustainability issues and coordinate environmental efforts in Singapore.

We are also an approved charity and offer tax exemption to donors. SEC continuously engages all sectors of the community by formulating and executing a range of holistic programmes, such as the Singapore Environmental Achievement Awards, Asian Environmental Journalism Awards, School Green Awards, Singapore Green Labelling Scheme, Project: Eco-Office, Project: Eco-Shop and Project: F&B.

In addition, we build a pool of committed volunteers under our Earth Helpers programme. Our Training and Education arm provides the people, public and private sectors with the opportunity to develop awareness, knowledge, skills and tools in order to protect and improve our environment for a sustainable future.

Strong partnerships with corporations, government agencies and other NGOs are valued by us. These partnerships are vital for sustaining our programmes, leading to positive action and change. Over the years, SEC has given strength and direction to the environmental movement in Singapore.

About StarHub

StarHub is Singapore’s fully-integrated info-communications company, offering a full range of information, communications and entertainment services for both consumer and corporate markets. StarHub operates a mobile network that provides 4G and 3G services. It also manages an island-wide HFC network that delivers multi-channel pay TV services (including HDTV, Internet TV and on-demand services) as well as ultra-high speed residential broadband services. StarHub operates an extensive fixed business network that provides a wide range of data, voice and wholesale services.

Over Singapore’s fibre-based Nationwide Broadband Network, StarHub offers a broad range of home and business broadband plans as well as commercial and residential IPTV services.

Launched in 2000, StarHub has become one of Singapore’s most innovative info-communications providers, and the pioneer in ‘hubbing’ - the ability to deliver unique integrated and converged services to all its customers. StarHub, listed on the main board of the Singapore Exchange since October 2004, is a component stock of the Straits Times Index, the MSCI Singapore Free Index, the SGX Sustainability Leaders Index and the SGX Sustainability Leaders Enhanced Index.